Requiem for Moses

me at Virago a couple of years ago.

“I was second last of eighteen girls. All the other girls had competed before. So they were all winners already. They’d won auditions before. So they were the cream of the crop. I got there ‘cause a friend of mine was a friend of one of the big shots at Virago.

“When I saw what these kids could do, I knew I shouldn’t have even been there. But when my turn finally came, I gave it my best shot.”

THE PAST

Dr. Moses Green chuckled. “Where in the world did you find her?”

Jake Cameron was sore, and he sounded it. “Joe Blinstraub owed a favor. The only thing we had to agree to was to include her in the audition.”

Since becoming a partner, Green had assumed an active role at Virago, much to Cameron’s exasperation and distress. Whenever an audition was scheduled, Green made every effort to attend. Only rarely did he allow his medical practice to interfere.

“Going to take her on, Jake?” Green chortled.

Cameron merely snorted.

Then Green leaned forward. Something had occurred to him. After several moments of reflection, he drew his chair closer to Cameron’s. Competing against the music, the doctor spoke loudly into Cameron’s ear. “Take her on, Jake.”

Cameron turned to him. “You crazy?”

“Not often, but this time yes. She’ll be lucky if she gets off that stage in one piece. A little bad luck in that routine and she could hurt herself.”

The suggestion didn’t make any sense at all. But, in Cameron’s experience, the doctor usually got what he wanted.

“Jake,” Green said, still speaking over the music, “if I’m not mistaken, you’re planning a big finale a la Las Vegas, with all the dancers, at the end of each evening’s major set.”

Cameron nodded slowly.

“Put her in that. Stick her back in the back row, put her in the wings-hell, put her backstage if you want.”

“This doesn’t make any sense at all, Moe. The broad is here as a favor, nothing more. We didn’t know anything about her; she might’ve turned out to be good. As it is, she stinks. We’ll let her finish her routine-if you could call it that. Then she’s outta here.”

“Tell you what,” Green persisted, “take her on and I’ll personally see that she gets professional instruction. If, after she gets the training, she can’t make this line legitimately, she’s history. But, in the meantime, she dances at Virago. I don’t care where. The ladies’ room.”

“Why bother? We got enough pros in this batch to fill our needs.”

“Jake, remember that revolving stage you were planning?”

Cameron winced.

“I was going to provide the financing.”

“Was going?”

“I think I’m running kind of short.”

“So are professional basketball players.”

“I’m just thinking of your timetable, Jake. The stage was your next priority.”

“We can afford it if you’re strapped.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“But not now.”

Cameron slumped in his chair. He hated to lose. He hated it that he never beat Green. Not once. “Okay, okay. But just as a matter of curiosity, why? Why go to all this trouble? She’s just a broad. You’ve had hundreds. I don’t see anything special about her. Good tits and ass. But that’s not hard to find. Why Claire McNern?”

Green sat back, relishing his victory. “Because, Jake, she knows how bad she is.”

“Huh?”

“She knows. I’ve been watching her. At first I didn’t see anything unique or even special about her. But I watched her expression as the other girls performed. She was stunned-amazed, thunderstruck, embarrassed. And then, when she got up to perform, it all became clear. She knows.”

“So?”

“Don’t you get it? I’m going to be her Abraham Lincoln … no, make that Swifty Lazar-hell, a combination of the two.”

“What?”

“The key to this whole thing is that the girl has learned a lesson today. She’s not Ginger Rogers. She hasn’t a chance in hell of dancing at Virago. Then, along comes me. I have taken pity on her. I’m gonna be her sugar daddy. I give her the Impossible Dream. I get her a job in Virago. It’s not much; in fact, the customers can barely see her. But she’s in. She made it.

“On top of all that, I provide lessons from the best. So she can gradually move up. And, most of all, she doesn’t have to hide in a corner when somebody like Jake Cameron offers her an audition.”

“Some plan.”

“Is she going to be grateful? I ask you. She will wonder what she possibly can do to repay my concern, my caring, my financial investment.”

“And you will have some ideas on the matter.”

“I’ll think of something.”

Jake gave Claire the good news. Miraculous news, in Claire’s opinion. And, indeed it was. Cameron also revealed to Claire the identity of her fairy godfather. It was part of the deal struck between Moe and Jake, whereby Cameron got his revolving stage and Green got his mistress.

Green carefully assessed his prey before getting to what he considered “the good part.” He investigated her background before making his move. Irish Catholic parents; six siblings, all living. From first grade through high school, Catholic training. Two years of Catholic college.

Green could relate. At least on paper, this was the way Green had raised his two children. Well, actually, Margie had raised them. But Moe had been an attentive onlooker.

Fortunately for Green’s purposes, Claire McNern’s parents had all but disowned her when she began her career in show business. If forced to choose-and they had been-her brother and sisters sided with their parents.

Thus, she would not have to be weaned from hearth and home.

Green set her up in a quasi-luxurious apartment and sent her to a highly recommended professional dance instructor. He planned everything carefully and, as it turned out, correctly. Although it rubbed wrong his entire being, all he did was give, give, give. He asked for nothing. He dismissed her avowals that, once established, she would repay him for all the considerable investment he had made in her.

Eventually, and in Green’s mind, inevitably, one pleasant evening when he was paying her one of his frequent visits, she would be wearing a seductive, revelatory, and-to her-sinful negligee.

Still he held off.

Instead of forcing himself upon her, he pushed the final button. He detailed a fabricated description of his loveless marriage. It had, he reluctantly admitted, been years since he had enjoyed the physical love of a caring woman.

She had almost exploded.

Among the many pleasures of that night, he had discovered that she was a virgin. But not anymore.

From the very beginning, his plans for Claire had been open-ended. In one scenario, he would have sex with her as early in their relationship as possible. Or he might prolong the suspense, then take her quickly, then drop her. The way things actually transpired, it was almost too good to be true. And to think he had made it up as he went along!

Now there was no way he would put her out of his life. With his convincing fiction, he had created the perfect woman-on-the-side.